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I swear these critters are trying to kill me; or make me wet my knickers.
A few minutes ago I looked out the door and saw some pigeons perched on the back fence, so I broke up some bread crumbs and tossed them out onto the patio. They hopped down and started greedily scarfing them up. I thought the cats might be entertained watching them. Oh, they were. In a few moments all the little hairy varmint critters were glued to the back patio door watching them. Toby was barking his little pea brain out (wouldn't take long, neither), but everybody just ignored him.
Suddenly Cherokee couldn't stand it any longer. With a long, low gliding motion, he ran through the pet door on the side patio door and charged around the corner. The rest of us watched. Toby was silent. The pigeons stopped eating and went on the alert. Cherokee froze at the corner of the house in plain sight and crouched to spring, tail twitching uncontrollably.
CHARGE!!!!! ????? RETREAT!!!!! (Remember Yosemite Sam charging right into the barrel of the cannon?) The feathered object of Cherokee's wild attack stood there until the cat was in reach and pecked him hard, right on the nose. The other bird attacked from the rear, doing a good imitation of a mother hen flogging an enemy. The poor cat spun in place a couple of times, getting thoroughly pecked from both ends, then retreated.
Cautiously he peered around the corner. The birds were calmly eating their crumbs. He looked up and saw Patty and me grinning at him. Brethren and sistern, that tore him up. Cherokee can't stand to be made to look ridiculous. Back to full attack mode. No dumb birds were going to make him look. . .LOOK OUT! One of the pigeons hopped a little closer to the cat, and he bailed, but the bird wasn't after Cherokee. He was just moving to another bunch of crumbs.
Maybe surprise would do it. From out of sight around the corner, Cherokee got a running start and charged his Nemeses (that's plural for "damn birds"). He shot around the corner just as a whole flock of pigeons arrived to take part in the feast. Cherokee gave a gasp of horror, looked to see if there was a fat Englishman filming all this, then slammed on the brakes so hard his feet flew out from under him. Normally he opens the pet door slowly and carefully, but for some reason he hit it so hard this time he almost tore the flap off.
As I was writing this, the birds left. When Cherokee saw them leave, he went back outside and attacked a feather they'd left behind. He was absolutely fearless dealing with that feather, until I reached over and tapped on the door. That was when he thought of something that needed to be taken care of elsewhere.
Editor's note:
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